


For all these lives

by historia_vitae_magistras



Series: The tulips make me want... [5]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: M/M, warning: Im a sap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-02
Updated: 2018-02-02
Packaged: 2019-03-12 19:11:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13553763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/historia_vitae_magistras/pseuds/historia_vitae_magistras
Summary: 2015. It's been 70 years since liberation. Matthew watches as the children of the Netherlands honour his fallen.Oneshot. Complete.





	For all these lives

The winter isn't so hard in the Netherlands. The sky is low and grey enough to almost meet the dusting of white along the frosted grass. But at least the wind promises rain, not snow. A square of green enclosed in trees that do not lose their foliage. Rows of clean white stones gleam. They are well cared for, their maple leaf emblems burnished to shining even in the gloomy winter day. In rows of fifteen and twenty, hundreds of souls lay here. Hundreds of souls lay protected from the world in this peaceful, sheltered place. It is a mild place, a green place, a forgiving place. A good place to die as any. A better place than most to be buried.

And much of him is buried here.

Matthew stands away from the main crowd, at the edge of the red brick path. They are all civilians save for the band and honour guard of Royal Marines. Few are his own among them. There's a throng of Canadian expatriates and a few visiting veterans, but he stands away from their numbers. His living veterans have recognized him now and again. It is always painful, still looking twenty when seventy years have passed. So he stays away, wears his toque low, shoulders high around his ears to dissuade anyone's approach.

Besides, the crowd is almost completely Dutch. Most of the crowd is made up of the families of the school children who stand in lines with candles. The military band strikes up. There's a low belting of horns, the rhythmic rattle of drums and the wind instruments carry to his ears. Like music, yes, but more like the polar wind that comes down from the north back home. It swirls around him and reminding him of what he is and how fucking alone he is here, how alone he’s always been.

He's yet to see Johan. He’d expected to find him long before the ceremony began but he'll show up eventually. In the meantime, he watches the ceremony. Young lives sheltering small flames in their careful little hands. They grip the candles, each child reverent. He watches each of them carrying the small lights like they are the souls of the soldier's themselves. One by one, they make their slow walks to each grave marker. They place their candle before returning to their families and teachers for another. Each child places five candles each, taking four or five trips apiece. Three hundred children working to put one candle on each plot. One thousand three hundred and ninety-three candles for his fallen men.

The fifes and bugles begin halfway through. Beginning as the children placed their second or third candles. Low, slow, soft and sad. The horns and drums behind them, keeping the songs timing the way a heart kept the rhythm of a human life. Matthew’s heart clenched at the tune. Of all the songs.

The choir began. Men's voices deep and low, women’s voices carrying the high notes. The sounds swung around with the bluster of wind and scoured Matthew's cheeks.

 

_The day is ending, the lights are low_  
_Memories fill the air_  
_Lad, oh though you're far away_  
_I see you everywhere_  
_I read your letters tenderly_  
_For they mean so much to me_

_I’ll keep your memory in my heart_  
_You stand with me though apart_  
_At the table, I’ll place you’re chair_  
_And pretend, pretend you’re always there_

_Perhaps tomorrow my heart will sing_  
_With the good news, only the angels bring_  
_That keeps you in his tender care_  
_In a place tender green and fair_  
  


He shoved his hands in his pockets and swallowed the urge to tear up. He’d heard that one in both the trenches of the First World War and the foxholes of the second. God keep you in his tender care... in a place tender green and fair. Matt pushed at the frosted grass with the toe of his boot and shivered.

Where the fuck was Johan?

Eventually, the cemetery comes alive, the headstones looking to waver, swaying in the candlelight. The lights breathe life into the dead once more. The headstones marking the plots bright gold against the shining silver of the snow and sky. The trees a dark outline against the fading light. The song changed, turned lighter. The Dutch National Anthem. As it played, a young, tall soldier left the band formation and disappeared.

Matt doesn’t notice. He’s too busy watching a little girl walk past him. She’s pink-cheeked and tall, well dressed for the weather with her hair in neat braids under her hat and her gloved hands carrying the flickering light, ever so careful. Matthew watched as she went to the farthest corner and placed her candle in front of a grave, ever gentle. She stood there for a moment, watching the flame as she stretched out a hand and pat the grave like it were an old friend. Matthew’s heart skipped several beats and tears welled in his eyes. He thumbed his phone, considered shooting Johan a ‘where are you?’ text. The girl rejoins her family and a father lifts her to his chest for a hug. The song changed again. This time his own national anthem.

“You’re crying,” Came Johan’s voice from behind him. He sounds like he can’t believe it.

“Heh, yeah,” Matt removed his glasses, swiped at his eyes. “Guess I am,”

He glances Johan up and down. He’s dressed for the weather in a heavy coat. It's unbuttoned only held closed by the belt as if he'd only shrugged it on a moment before. Oh, he has, there are the orange tabs of the Dutch Royal Marines dress uniform enclosed high around his neck.

“You look nice,” Matt nodded.

“Mm,” Johan nodded, stoic as ever. “Never seems right to do this in street clothes,” He’s not looking at Matt, but at the graves. To another’s eyes, he might look bored, even angry. But Matt has known him long enough to read his face, has known him long enough to judge that the thin line of his mouth turned down just a little, that his face looked subtly soft and sad.

“Considering we were there the first time,” Matt said. Briefly, he thought of olive drab and of blood diluting pale in shallow Dutch waters. He swallowed at how recent it still felt sometimes. “God, it's really been seventy years,”

“Seventy years,” Johan glanced up, saw what Matt was thinking there, written in the honest North American memory that always showed itself on his face. Johan took his hand, squeezed it. “You brought seventy years of peace,”

“You did the hard parts,” Matt nudged him with an elbow, tried to smile, but Johan stopped him cold with a hard look, searching his face for something else.

“You did more than anyone ever had the right to ask of you,” Johan stared out, re-laced his fingers through Matt’s so the grip was better, tighter. “All these graves,” He looked out over the grave markers.

“For all these lives,” Matt said. He stared out at the crowd, held Johan's warm hand. They stood apart from the crowd of humanity, but they stood together. “That’s a fair trade if ever there was one,”


End file.
